Sunday, May 31, 2015

Kaelah's Corner (May 2015): Just Me

Have you ever had sex (kinky or not) without a sexy fantasy going on in your head? This is a question I asked myself a while ago. And the honest answer is that I don't think so. For as long as I can remember, I play out kinky fantasies in my head when masturbating. I guess the closest I came to just being in the here and now when having sex was at the time when Ludwig and I had just become a couple and were still in the process of getting to know each other. But even then, I think there was at least some projection involved when we were having sex, which in my opinion can be translated into "I was playing out fantasies in my head".

Now the question is, is this good or bad? I think it is neither inherently good nor bad, it depends on how the fantasies are being used.

I assume every fellow spanko will agree that living out one's fantasies with a trusted play partner can be lots of fun! Ludwig and I aren't great role-players, but I love to create interesting characters and scenes in my head and I love to get into the mindset of a character who is very different from me in kinky clips. I would say the soulless goon in Psychic Weapon C was one of my favourites.

I am not very good at imagining Ludwig in a certain role when it is just the two of us, though. The closer we have become, the more difficult it has got. Maybe that's why kinky play has become a bit more difficult, because it seems that I either need the image of a very experienced leader in my mind for my play as a bottom or the image of someone who needs my leadership for my kinky play as a top. Since Ludwig and I are very much on eye-level in our real life, I am having difficulties imagining us in the roles of leader and follower in our kinky play.

Role-play becomes
easier with people I don't know so well, though. So maybe Ludwig and I
will play with others more often in the future. Having more people
around also allows for more complex scenarios, so maybe we will even
play in a bigger group sometime when the chance arises. Ludwig and I
have already talked about roles we would enjoy seeing each other in. We will see what the future will bring!I think that relying on fantasies in one's kink and sex life can have negative effects, too, though, especially in long-term relationships. For instance when one partner tries to make the other fit into their fantasies, maybe even not only during sex but in their relationship. Ludwig once had a girlfriend who wanted him to be the top 24/7. Now, Ludwig has a very caring streak and he likes to look after someone he loves. But, he doesn't want to be the leader all the time. He likes a mate with whom he can relax, or whom he can ask for support, once in a while as well. Since he was supposed to be the top all the time in that relationship, he had the feeling that he couldn't really be himself. He had to stay in a fantasy role which proved to be very exhausting.

Another way of using one's fantasies in a long-term relationship which is critical in my opinion is in order to hide from one's partner and to be protected from getting hurt or having to deal with things that don't work out so well. As I said, living out kinky fantasies together is a great adventure, but how about sex during which one or both partners escape into sexy fantasies which have nothing to do with what's just going on between them? In that case, the fantasies suddenly separate the partners from each other.

I made that experience when my commitment phobia broke through and made it more difficult for me to let myself go in intimate moments with Ludwig. Since I wanted to make things "work" nonetheless, I sometimes found myself playing out even more intense fantasies in my head than I had before. As I said, I don't think playing out fantasies in one's head while having sex is inherently bad, but I felt that on these occasions it brought me away from Ludwig instead of adding to having fun with him as it normally does.

And so I realised that I sought something new in our relationship when it comes to sexuality. Not in order to replace the kinky adventures and the fantasy part, but in addition to it. As I already mentioned in my post Breaking the Rules, in my opinion sex in a long-term relationship is mostly about the partners being accepted by each other completely as they are. And I think that includes being close to each other without the protection of fantasies and role-playing from time to time. Thankfully, Ludwig is very open to trying out new things with me. I can count myself very lucky in that regard!I generally think that fantasies and role-playing offer us protection and allow us to explore things that might be very scary without the protective framework of a fantasy situation. Which is of course fine. Exploring these things while simply being oneself can be a huge challenge which might be worth trying as well, though. This is wonderfully shown in the clip Amelia Jane Rutherford and Pandora made for Backlash.

When Pandora asks Amelia Jane whether she is nervous about her upcoming caning she heartfully replies: "Yes!" And then she explains why: "Because the way I get through a caning is by playing an unpleasant character. So, I'm Amelia Jane Rutherford when I get caned normally. And she has always asked for it, basically. And this is just me. I wanted to be just me because I wanted to be honest. I don't want to be hiding behind something when I'm doing this […]. And I thought that actually it will be interesting to be caned as me because I don't know what my response really is."

The clip is really great in my opinion because it shows Amelia Jane and Pandora as themselves and therefore reflects their lovely personalities and their honest passion for spanking. So it seems that it was absolutely worth taking the challenge of just being them.

I wonder how difficult it is to just be oneself (and just see one's partner as him- or herself) when it comes to (vanilla) sex in a long-term relationship, though. In my post Breaking the Rules I said that I want to be more in the here and now when it comes to sex (and actually in my whole life as well). That also includes not playing out fantasies in my head during sex all the time. I am not sure how easy that is, though. But it sounds like an intriguing idea and so Ludwig and I have something new to explore together.

We have even tried it out once already. At first it led to lots of laughter when we tried to find a position in which we could unite and then simply be close to each other and see how it feels. After a while we ended up having sex with me on top of Ludwig (a new position to us) and surely the one or other fantasy in our heads. So, the "just being in the here and now" didn't really work out as planned, but we had fun and made new experiences nonetheless. And I think the approach of taking time to connect with each other and with ourselves instead of trying to evoke sexy fantasies right from the beginning really made a difference.

So, how about you? Are you a passionate role-player? And when you are not role-playing, do you play out fantasies in your mind when having sex? Have you made any experiences with just being in the here and now when being intimate with your partner? How did you like it? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section! I am curious to find out how others see and experience these things!

4 comments:

Gustofur
said...

Dear Dr. Kaelah, Just letting you know I read your post. However, I find it difficult to respond. The fact remains, you are a complicated philosopher. Obviously I have fantasies. Otherwise I wouldn't be reading kinky blogs. When I was 18, I thought about sex about every 18 minutes (I believe this was the accepted norm for a male). Now that I am considerably older, I think about sex about every 19 minutes, between naps. lol. All these thoughts are fantasy. Perhaps you are a subject in some of those fantasies, but I am not going to risk Ludwig's rath by actually admitting it. I sure am going to miss this blog

Gustofur and about 2 million others, including me I'm afraid, sorry Ludwig! Worse still, its both ways!!!

The issue for me is a little bit of guilt. It feels somehow unfaithful to be thinking of something (ok, someone, real or imagined) other than what you are doing and who you are doing it with. We are serial monogamists and 'familiarity' has to play a part. I am monogamous out of respect, my wife out of unshakable conviction. For all that I sense she also imagines although we have never discussed it.

We never got into role play, just not us. For kinky we invent games of chance that end up with rather painful forfeits but both players are invariably losers (or winners). The players are always simply us, no roles. Over time her interest in kinky play has waned and that is sad for me.

Honestly, good sex is one of few things that can take me reliably out of a kinky fantasy. I find it difficult to explain it, but I will try.

Like you, I have kinky fantasies. Lots of them. They tend to focus on corporal punishment and the atmosphere surrounding it; there are certainly erotic undertones, but explicit sex is incidental if it's happening at all. Some of these fantasies are just fragments, but some are very elobarate. Letting them play out in my mind has been the most constant kinky pleasure in my life.

However, I do not act them out by roleplaying. I very much enjoy reading about other peoples' roleplaying adventures, but the few times I tried it, there was a feeling of disconnection that took the fun out of it. It may sound like nonsense, but somehow the fantasies seemed more "real" than the roleplay that acted them out. It might be that my fantasies are too elaborate: the "heroine" is often just one in a group of more than the two or three characters that can realistically participate in private roleplaying. Whatever the reason, roleplaying does not really work for me. In a similar way, I recognise my own fantasies more easily in written spanking fiction than in movies, even if those movies are right up my alley as far as the plot is concerned. That does not stop me from enjoying spanking videos, but the confrontation with the fact that characters and location look "this way and no different" is enough to disconnect the enjoyment from my own fantasies.

My theory is that a similar "disconnect" is what stops me from playing out kinky fantasies in my mind while having sex. In the past, when I was exploring darker parts of my sexuality that I was scared of, I would sometimes try to make up a fitting fantasy and keep it running during a new sexual "experiment" as a protection just like you have explained it. Actual sex is simply too real and distracting to keep a fantasy going. Most of the time, that's not a problem. When having sex with your lover, the sheer physicality of it, the emotions that come with it, the real "role" you find yourself in, the "here and now" as you put it, are a good things to focus on.

By the way, my partner says he would not be bothered if I played out a fantasy in my mind during sex with him. He adds it might be different if I started to plan tomorrow's shopping during sex. :)

Sorry for being so long-winded. That tendency explains why I usually refrain from commenting even when a post really captures my attention. Many on this blog have done that and I appreciate it.

@ Gustofur:“ The fact remains, you are a complicated philosopher.” Well, maybe just complicated. ;-)

Oh, and don't worry, Ludwig doesn't mind other guys fantasizing about me. In fact, he is always quite proud when we receive comments from men or women who say that they enjoy one of my pictures or find me hot in a video clip or think that I am sexy. At first I was a bit scared when Ludwig received comments like this from other women, but today I find it cool, too. Who wouldn't want a partner who is considered hot by other people? :-)

@ Simply Red:Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts on the subject!

Yes, I am with you on the slight feeling of guilt when fantasizing about someone other than your partner while having sex. My reason tells me that this is perfectly normal and nothing bad, though. I guess the only situation in which one would have to ask oneself whether those fantasies have a special meaning is in case they only involve the same single real existing person every time. But even then one isn't unfaithful. One can only be unfaithful when really doing something with another person that one's partner hasn't agreed upon.

My fantasies usually aren't even about real people, anyway, only about very vague fantasy characters. Still, I get the thing about the feeling of guiltiness, even though Ludwig always tells me that he doesn't mind me fantasizing when we are having sex.

As you said, I think it is a topic people (and especially partners) usually don't talk about because it is loaded with feelings of guilt and insecurity.

A short time ago I overheard a conversation during which someone talked about the rules for his relationship with his wife. I very much liked what he said. It went like this: “The mind is free, one can work up an appetite everywhere one likes, but dinner is eaten at home.” :-)

I can absolutely relate to what you say about role-playing. It doesn't really work for me, either, especially not when it is just Ludwig and me. It feels strange and artificial. The only way it works for me is when making videos. Because then I don't have to imagine to really be that person and really be in that situation but I can try to get into the character which I want to bring to life for the viewers as best as possible. That might be only a little difference but it has a huge effect for me. Getting into a character in front of a camera feels a lot less artificial and strange than doing it in a private role-play.

Like you I think that trying to bring my elaborate fantasies to life in a role-play wouldn't really work, either. Especially because the other people around me would have to act and come over exactly like the characters in my mind in order to make it feel real for me. And that's impossible.

In contrast to you I am able to play out kinky fantasies in my mind while having sex, but the fantasies are much more sexual than most of the fantasies which I play out in my mind at times when I'm not engaged in any sexual activities. Ludwig doesn't mind when I fantasize during sex, he even encourages it if it brings me joy.

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